First-Ever Global Holocaust Film Series Aims to Honor the Past, Educate the Future

The themes of strength, courage, and remembrance were on full display April 13 when The Jewish Heritage Museum and The Claims Conference came together to mark the opening of the first global Holocaust film series.

The series, made up of several films centered on the Holocaust that will run from April 13 through April 20 in various locations throughout New York City, was featured in an event in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah).

There will also be screenings in Germany, Israel, and Austria.

“Inked: Our Stories Remarked,” “See You Soon,” and “Sevap Mitzvah” were the three featured films of the festival. Although the screenings were postponed in Israel due to the ongoing conflict, they are planned to resume at a later date.

The Claims Conference, an international organization that advocates for and secures compensation for Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, emerged in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, when millions of survivors had lost homes, businesses, and family members. Jewish organizations recognized that there was a need for a unified body to press the newly formed West Germany for reparations.

Jack Kliger, president and CEO of The Jewish Heritage Museum, was elated to bring this event to life. “We’re a storytelling institution. We love to tell stories to students or adults. And that’s how we get our message out.” He put a major emphasis on continuing to educate the younger generations on the Holocaust to make sure it is never forgotten.

Film has become the mainstream method of educating younger generations that are more addicted to their screens than ever, and The Jewish Heritage Museum is doing all that it can to keep the youth engaged and informed on such an important part of history. “I think for a lot of younger people, the visual is perhaps more important than for an earlier generation,” said Taylor. He later added: “You have to be able to go to a museum and see a film...It’s also global. It’s international. You can make a film here and show it in France.”

For Kliger, moving to a more digital world has been a process, but a necessary one. “We really made a strategic change during COVID to move programming into a much more important function, both physically and virtually.” He later added, “You have to go beyond the walls if you’re gonna deal with people nowadays who are used to looking at screens.”

Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal added to this conversation when he said: “Art helps us process pain, with collective trauma, creating and consuming art, is a way to know that you are not dealing with your grief alone...sharing stories of strength, courage, and resilience, these films ensure that what survivors endured transcends culture, language, and time.”

As the years go on, there are fewer and fewer survivors to tell their stories. Fortunately, Gabriella Major, a Holocaust survivor, continues to speak up and educate. “I feel like this is my home, The Museum of Jewish Heritage,” she said with a smile. Born in Debrecen, Hungary, she was sent with her mother and grandmother to a concentration camp near Vienna after many months of living in a ghetto. After her family was liberated by the Russians, she was reunited with her father, and the family lived in Hungary under Russian occupation. In 1956, the Hungarian Revolution broke out, and the family immigrated to the U.S. in 1957. Today, she spends her time educating the youth on the Holocaust and speaking at various events.

Major opened the discussion at the start of the film screening, where she sat at the front of the stage and delivered powerful messages of perseverance in life and preservation of history. “I speak to students, and I’ve always been telling them about how much they really need to know to try not to have history repeat itself. Now, unfortunately, history is repeating itself,” said Major. She hopes that the films will help people understand the message she has been spreading for so many years. “Hate kills, and so they need to know that we have zero tolerance for anti-Semitism and hate against any people,” she said.

Major appearance at the event was monumental for The Claims Conference. “There was a time, years ago, when the whole room might have been full of survivors. And now it’s a struggle, sometimes, even to find survivors who can come and speak. So we’re very fortunate,” commented Gideon Taylor, president of The Claims Conference.

Hoylman-Sigal spoke in support of the preservation of Jewish history and culture. “And in today’s times, ‘never again’ feels all the more pertinent when hatred is separating families and making scapegoats of our neighbors. We can’t be indifferent or silent. We must act, speak out, and resist. May these films remind us that every day, we remember, and we ensure never again.”

Each director held a deep personal connection to the events of the Holocaust and found different ways of expressing those emotions. “Inked: Our stories remarked,” directed by Dara Bratt, was a documentary-style piece about third-generation Holocaust descendants who choose to get commemorative tattoos to remember their ancestors. Showing the perspective of both those being tattooed, as well as of a Holocaust survivor, offered nuanced takes on the phenomenon. “I think the idea of how we carry memory forward is something you can extrapolate, whether you’re Jewish or not. I think the idea of tattoos being a visual language is something that we can discuss,” Bratt said.

“Sevap Mitzvah” is the retelling of a true story about the friendship between two women during the Nazi regime. Sabina Vajrača, the director of this film, stumbled across a famous photograph of Zejneba Hardaga protecting Rivka Kabiljo in Sarajevo, 1941. The Hardaga family, Bosnian Muslims, had risked their lives to protect the Jewish Kavillo family from the Nazis. Vajrača is originally from Bosnia and was forced to immigrate to Florida at age 14 when the 1992 war in Bosnia broke out. “We were granted political asylum because my father was very actively trying to save people in Bosnia under the Serbian occupation in our hometown. And so he was wanted dead or alive and, because of that, we were one of the first families to be allowed to come here. So we came to America, became American citizens, and have been living here ever since,” Vajrača told Straus News. Her life experiences drew her to make this film to represent two separate, but united, identities during the Holocaust. “I connect with the Jewish people because we also had our own genocide,” she said to the audience.

“See You Soon,” directed by Jennifer Skarbnik, is a stop-motion film based on a letter written by her grandfather to Haneczka, his younger sister, about the tragedy that their family suffered during the Holocaust. The only dialogue in the short was a voice reading the words written by the grandfather and the sister. Set in post-war rubble and destruction, the majority of the film illuminates the end-of-the-world feeling the grandfather seemed to have. However, staying true to the theme of the event “strength of courage,” the two main characters find hope in the thought of possibly seeing each other again. There was no happy ending, but the director’s creation of this film was a way to tell their story and keep their relationship alive.

“I don’t hope to; we have to,” said Kliger, when asked by Straus News whether he hopes to attract a younger audience for lessons on history. He added: “The challenge is not whether we, and our contemporaries and our peers, know our history. The challenge is the one that was given to me that got me involved with this institution, and that is: Who will your grandchildren’s grandchildren learn from?”